


As The Light Leaves Your Eyes

by CalamityCain



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Mythology
Genre: Angst, End of the World, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Ragnarok, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityCain/pseuds/CalamityCain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Hold my hand. As you did when we were young."</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the end of all things, a queen reunites with her dying father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As The Light Leaves Your Eyes

 

The ashes of Ragnarok settled at her feet as she collected what was left of the End: battered souls without honour, the ragged few who had not been worthy of Odin’s shieldmaidens and their clarion call. Her lithe grey arms welcomed them. Beholding her skeletal beauty, they fell into her realm. Helheim, home of the dishonourable dead.

 

 

_Light footsteps make an endless playground of Asgard’s golden hallways. A quiet child who prefers darkened corners from which to conjure shadow-figures of fantastical beasts may still find it thrilling to run down a corridor till breathless. From the other end, her father’s smile only encourages her._

_A stray sliver of sun hits her sensitive eyes. He notices and closes the offending window with a twitch of his fingers. “Show me how you do that,” she demands with charming bluntness as he scoops her into his arms. “You promised you would.”_

 

 

Her relentless march ceased only when she came upon the familiar visage of her father. The god of mischief – trickster, master of lies, Loki Silvertongue – lay beside the broken body of Thor, his brother-in-arms. When he saw her, the familiar sly smile graced his pale face for the last time.

"The stars are bright again, Hela." He glanced up at the skies where the red had faded. "They crown you so well."

"Not as well as they do you, father. You always were the cleverest and most beautiful; even more so than fair Baldr."

To this he replied with some derisive sound. It was but the softest of sighs from lips that had spoken their last.

"Hold my hand," she whispered. "As you did when we were young."

 

 

_It is nearing sunset as they sit beneath the shade of Idunn’s trees. She shares her increasingly vivid dreams with him, of serpents and wolves, coiling and howling into long lonely nights. His face is unreadable as his deft hands carve a golden apple._ _“Would you like to hear a story?” he asks, handing her a slice. She chews on it solemnly and waits. No one tells better stories than Father._

_“Once in a faraway land, as bright and eternal as ours…”_

 

 

She held out her hand; it still fit perfectly in his, after all this time. Their fingers entwined. As the light fled from his bright green eyes, she kissed his brow –

 

 

_The tales come with larger-than-life illusions woven from thin air and make her sombre face light up. Often, during the frightening parts, her small, cold hand finds its way into his and relishes the warm, safe feeling of being encircled by the strong clever fingers she has trusted from the moment she opened her eyes_

 

 

\- And then he was gone.

The sparse lines of her countenance had stayed unmoving for over a century. But now a strange trickle ran down it. She touched her right cheekbone and saw it: a single, ice-cold tear.

The a shudder ran through her, and she knelt with bowed head over the one she had given so much of her childish heart to, once upon a time, when she’d been a sprout of a girl and the shadows had not yet claimed her. They had had their vengeance on the ones who tore them apart. And all they gained in return was blood, bones, debris, and death. Death she had plenty of. Its constant company wore her out; but yet must she wear the mantle she was ordained to wear.

 

 

_“And now,” says Father, “I believe it’s your bedtime.”_

_“But it’s not even late!” she protests. It doesn’t stop him from scooping her into his arms, or stop her outrage from dissolving into shrieks as he tickles her most sensitive spots._

_“Please don’t send me to bed,” she begs. He frowns thunderously, in imitation of uncle Thor. “Do you promise not to tell Queen Frigga I’ve been letting you stay up?”_

 

 

The End came and went. Once more, the world was still and new. Nothing had changed. Hela remained alone. For of course the last one to walk the death-ridden plains was the ruler of death herself.

Just this once, the goddess lay her head down and wept.

_He almost winks, but not quite. “Do you promise?”_

_“I promise, father.”_

_And with that sly exchange they shoot up towards the stars to paint new constellations. Cloaked in shared magic, safe in the illusion that the world and all its mysteries are theirs._

_  
_

_~  
_

 

**Author's Note:**

> so somewhere along squeezing out my Loki-Hela feels by the river of angst, i realised a lot of it came from my own complex feelings about my late dad, who was claimed by cancer early this year.
> 
> i never did get to say i love you....


End file.
